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While flying to Phoenix on the day she died, Carol Anne Gotbaum was crying and quaffed a Blood Mary, a flight attendant says.

The account is contained in the final Phoenix police report, released yesterday, of Gotbaum’s death Sept. 28 in a holding cell at the city’s airport.

The US Airways flight attendant, identified only as Ms. Jackson, tried to comfort Gotbaum, the daughter-in-law of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, but was told there was nothing she could do.

Carol Anne then “collected a magazine and returned to her seat.”

The report covers much of the same ground as an initial police report released Oct. 4, saying Gotbaum went ballistic after missing a connecting flight to Tucson, where she was to enter an alcohol-rehab program.

Gotbaum, cuffed behind her back and shackled to a bench, suffocated while trying to maneuver the cuffs to the front of her.

The report again raises the question of why Gotbaum was allowed to fly to Phoenix by herself.

A family friend, David Watson, is quoted as saying that Gotbaum’s husband, Noah, called him the night before the flight and asked if he and his wife, Christina, could help Carol Anne in Phoenix.

Watson replied that they couldn’t because they were out of town.

The couple did fly to Phoenix the next day after receiving an anguished call from Noah – who couldn’t find out about his wife – and learned that Carol Anne had died.

Watson called Noah to tell him the tragic news and the distraught husband yelled, “They killed her! They killed her!”

Michael Palombo, a Phoenix cop, said Betsy Gotbaum then called twice, asking if police could give out Carol Anne’s maiden name, Stiger, “so as to insulate her and her family from media coverage.”